Let's Listen This Time

March 17, 2009

Roger Cohen's stupid evidence for his claim that the Jews of Iran lead a relatively benign life is that 25,000 of them have remained in the country since the ayatollahs came to power thirty years ago. More authoritative sources say that the number may be closer to 10,000. But everyone agrees there were roughly 100,000 in the country at the start of the Islamic revolution which, of course, coincided with the start of the Islamic tyranny. No coincidence!

I've posted a while back about Cohen's Times op-ed column on February 22 in which he urges the view that we not take too seriously the rhetoric of the mullahs (and Dr. Ahmadinejad), in particular) that Iran intends to take Israel off the map. Cohen is, in this regard, woefully ignorant of a vast body of scholarship about the policies of what is increasingly a Basiji regime. A scrupulously learned man, Professor Matthias K